FATHER: Lars ANDERSSON
MOTHER: Karna ANDERSDOTTER
BORN: Jöns LARSSON
NAME CHANGE: John Lars ANDERSON
John Anderson joined the Mormon Church in Sweden in 1853, when he was 27-years old. He was interested in a young girl of 20-years old, Johanna, who had a widowed mother named Bengta.
John wanted to marry Johanna and immigrate to America, but she didn't want to leave her mother behind in Sweden, all alone. So John married Bengta, who was 14-years his senior, in order to expedite her through immigration and on to Utah.
Once in Utah, because of polygamy (which was legal in the Mormon church at that time), John was then able to marry Johanna, who by then was 28-years old. Together, John had six children with Johanna, four surviving into adulthood.
When John was 33, he took on a third wife, Kerstina (Christina) age 23, after the death of her first husband, Nils Jönsson Holmstedt. Kerstina had six children with John, four of whom died under the age of seven. Kerstina also brought her one living child from her deceased husband, Nils, and raised the boy (Brigham August Holmsted) until he went to Alberta, Canada to settle on his own.
John Lars Anderson passed away in 1907, and was buried in a family plot in the Brigham City Cemetery, with his Gravestone memorializing him with his three polygamous wives: Bengta or 'Betsy' PEHRSDOTTER (mother), Johanna Johansdotter CHRISTENSSON (daughter), and Kerstina or 'Christina' CARLSDOTTER HOLMSTEDT.
Kerstina proceeded him in death in 1881, followed by Bengta in 1898. Johanna was the only wife to survive him, passing away in 1922.